A Matter of Life and Bears

“Up an’ at ‘em!” my husband, John, called in his wide-awake morning voice. Moans and groans filled the camper as our three sons and I struggled to open our eyes. “We gotta get goin’ to beat the heat.”

We awoke to a picturesque morning in the Smoky Mountains, delicate ribbons of haze wisping around us as we made our way to and from the shower house. Once breakfast was over and the camper secured we launched into our planned hike up the mountain to the Appalachian Trail.

Our trek was well underway when my husband casually inquired, “Did you see the bear in the creek next to the shower house this morning?”

“Stop it!” I chided, “That’s not funny.”

“No, really! There was a bear…musta been thirty feet from the building.”

As we trudged on, my asthma kicked in, the altitude inhibiting my breathing, and I fell behind. The boys were seemingly unaffected by mountain air, and John was unwilling to let them show him up. Soon all four were out of sight.

A branch crackled behind me, then another. The bear! She’s coming up the trail! My steps quickened at the thought. Ahead of me the brush rustled. Must be her cub. Am I between them? I was nearly jogging now, my sons’ chatter no longer audible.

Soon my legs felt as heavy as the logs that lined the path. Side aching, chest burning, I puckered my lips, faintly emitting our family whistle-call. No reply! Knees trembling, heart pounding, I rounded the next bend, the bear’s breath hot on my neck.

My family stood along a fence rail, silently observing the beauty they had stumbled upon, oblivious to the approaching…

Oh, whew! What a relief! A quick glance behind me revealed that the only thing pursuing me was my imagination. I collapsed, gasping for breath.

My family found this incident hilarious. I found it mostly embarrassing. It did, however, confirm how much I value life. During those terrifying minutes (Or was it an hour?) I prayed, I pleaded, I bargained.

Remembering this experience brings the following verse to mind:

“If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it.” *

This verse is not speaking of physical death, of course, but of spiritually dying to self. The struggle, however, is the same. It matters not whether we are speaking of physical life or spiritual life. I am bent on self-preservation. But Jesus says that in order to live I must die! How does one so set on living choose to die?

God often reveals the parts of my being that are still clinging to life by putting a cross in my path. I may struggle, cry, plead, and finally, at the point of collapse, die to whatever it is I am selfishly holding onto. What He asks of me, though, is something different. He asks me to daily, voluntarily give up my life so that I can really live!

Dying to self isn’t a very popular concept, especially in the time and culture in which we live. We are constantly encouraged to protect, pamper, and take pride in ourselves. Many saints of old embraced this concept, however. The following was written by Fenelon, a seventeenth century French archbishop who knew firsthand, as well as through the experiences of those he counseled, what it meant to suffer for the cause of Christ.

“The death of self must be voluntary, and it can only be accomplished as far as you allow. Anyone who resists death and repels its advances shows that he is not willing to die. You must be willing to yield to the will of God whenever He decides to remove from you all of the props on which you have leaned. Sometimes you must give up even your most spiritual friends, if they are props. “What fearest thou, oh thou of little faith?”

Do you fear that He may not be able to supply to you from Himself that help which He may have taken away on the human level? And why does He take human help away, except to supply you from Himself, and to purify you by the painful lesson?” **

Fenelon goes straight to the heart of the issue. When I resist dying to self I am actually exhibiting fear –fear that God is insufficient. When I voluntarily die to self I allow Him to supply my every need and recognize His sufficiency to do so.

This is a discipline I am trying to learn. It isn’t easy. It goes against my natural instincts. It could be compared to lying down on a mountain path when convinced a bear is in hot pursuit. The daily practice of dying, however, is what purifies me and allows me to experience Christ living in me. Will it ever be easier and less painful to take up my cross? Not as long as any part of my SELF is still living! Death will always be death, just like a bear will always be a bear, at least as far as my perceptions are concerned.

Read on.

The following year our family traveled to Yellowstone National Park. As we drove through the park we were inundated with posters and fliers warning of bears. Campers were urged to make excessive noise to keep bears away or to “play dead” if a bear was encountered.

It seemed that soft-sided campers like ours were especially vulnerable because of the food cooked and stored inside. With that in mind, we took many precautions as we prepared our campsite. Our middle son, Tristan, frightened by all of the bear talk, begged to sleep in the van. We conceded, and soon we were sleeping soundly.

Later, a loud r-r-r-r-r-i-p sat me upright as John’s feet hit the floor. Grabbing a pan from the stove, I frantically banged on it with the lid (I certainly made excessive noise!). Meanwhile, John struggled to shove the bear’s paw out of the camper and re-close the opening it had made.

Somehow, above all the commotion, a small voice was heard. “Mom...Dad...it’s me! I just want back in the camper!” The rip had been the sound of Velcro separating as our son reached inside to unlock the door. After calming all three boys, now traumatized by our frenzy, my husband and I fell into each others' arms breathless, hearts pounding. I’m not sure we slept at all the remainder of that night.

I have yet to encounter a real bear. If I do I will most likely die as I run, clamor, and plead for my life, because pleading for life is as natural as breathing. Although my bear illustrations are humorous, the matter of dying to self is not. It is a daily struggle, a test of my true devotion to the one who gave up His life for me. This, then, is my prayer:

Father, please use my foolishness and my fear to remind me how much I desire to live, so that each and every day I will remember to die!


*Luke 9:23-34 New American Standard Version
**Fenelon, Let Go, (Whitaker House, 1973), p.7.

A Legacy of Life and Love

I met my match on the first day of school two years ago. “Lance” immediately stood out from his clean, polished classmates posing for their first day of kindergarten pictures. He tussled with his mom at the door, who left him fuming outside the door in angry tears. His jeans were ragged, and he had arrived with no school supplies or backpack.

Approaching him, I noticed several nasty scratches on his face and arms. “What happened?” I inquired, gently tracing a lighter one on his arm.

“Me and my brother were castrating cats...stupid cats!” His answer astounded me! Thus began an unpredictable and often volatile relationship with my new kindergarten student.

I learned that Lance’s father was soon due to be released from jail and that his short life had been unstable, to say the least. I brought school supplies and a new backpack for Lance the following day. At the end of that day, as he waited to be picked up after school, Lance went after some older students, wildly clobbering them with his backpack. The rampage continued as I implored him to stop, so I finally grabbed him from behind, attempting to remove him from the situation. As I dragged him, screaming, through the door he stomped on my foot, breaking two of my toes.

Rather than expel Lance, my principal and I brainstormed about how best to win the heart of an angry five year old. Not many days later, after yet another run-in with his peers, Lance climbed voluntarily into my lap and pulled my arms around him. It was a start, but his struggles were far from over. He regularly earned time-outs during recess. On one such occasion he sat on the ground hugging his knees while rocking back and forth and singing, “Open the eyes of my heart, Lord, Open the eyes of my heart...” Eyes closed, he repeated over and over again the opening phrases of the song we often sang as a class. The words seemed to well up from the very depths of his little wounded soul.

The child was intense. He sang the loudest, ran the fastest, and was first to conquer the monkey bars. Learning didn’t come easy. It totally frustrated him, and he demanded my undivided attention. In a classroom of eighteen students that was, of course, impossible.

Enter Tyler!

My principal had already sent several reinforcements my way, but Lance proved too much for some of them. When yet another student was assigned to help out twice a week I didn’t get my hopes up. But Tyler was an immediate hit with the class, and especially with Lance. Unruffled by Lance’s outbursts, Tyler’s presence had a calming effect, and yet he seemed embarrassed when I repeatedly told him how influential he had become. He smiled his big easy smile and blushed a little, too, when the kindergartners shouted hello across the parking lot or high-fived him as he passed in the hallway. Soon Tyler began showing up every day to help out instead of sticking to his assigned two afternoons a week. Still, I doubt that he fully understood how critical his role was, particularly in the life of a little boy who desperately needed a positive male influence.

Lance transferred to another school the following year, and Tyler went on to participate in other activities and service projects. He was never stingy with his smile, however, and in my eyes he stood a head taller than many of the other high school students. I always thought there was something very special about him.

Two weeks ago today, on February 10th, Tyler’s life here ended abruptly when his car ran under the back of a school bus on his way to school. Thankfully, no one else was injured. Our small Christian school, however, was rocked to the core; gripped with grief.

It was not until Tyler’s death that I learned how he came to attend our school. It seems that middle school had proven extremely painful, and his parents sent him to our school as a last-ditch effort to help him discover a purpose for his life. He was pretty jaded when he started as a freshman, and often “flew off the handle.” The class he became a part of has never been known for its
cohesiveness, and therefore wouldn’t have been our first choice for a young man healing from emotional wounds. Interestingly enough, he became the “glue” that brought the class together. That seems especially true now, through his death. A love and appreciation for Tyler is something the entire class shared.

The sight of all twelve remaining senior boys (and one special junior friend) serving as Tyler’s pall bearers will stay with me for a long time. It was a very touching and emotional scene as they carried his casket up the middle aisle of our auditorium, and then placed it in front of the set Tyler had recently built for an upcoming play.

Over the past four years Tyler had accepted Christ and grown confident in his faith and in the person God made him to be. He had also become involved in the lives of many younger students. Near the beginning of this current school year he had “adopted” the sixth grade class, and spent one study hall with them nearly every day. The junior high students loved and respected him, too, and of course the second graders still adored him.

In retrospect, so many events leading up to and following Tyler’s death seemed to be orchestrated by a loving Heavenly father. Another family on their way to school witnessed the accident, recognized the car as Tyler’s, and helped to identify him. My son Tristan, who was Tyler’s youth pastor, arrived at the accident scene very early on, and was able to comfort Tyler’s mother and accompany her to the hospital. Since the family didn’t have a church connection and Tyler had spoken affectionately of Tristan, he was asked to do the funeral service. The prayers of many were evident as Tristan, struggling with his own emotions, delivered a very personal message of comfort and hope to the more than 500 people in attendance. The gospel was clearly presented, and a few of Tyler’s classmates spoke about Tyler’s positive influence in their own lives. Tyler’s family was overwhelmed and overjoyed by the love showered upon them by people they barely knew. New relationships were formed.

Almost immediately after Tyler’s death many regrets were expressed. One of Tyler’s friends admitted to having “keyed” his car, and declared he was going to permanently inscribe Tyler’s initials into his own car. A female classmate expressed sorrow over regarding Tyler with annoyance. Even I regretted that I had only spoken with Tyler in passing over the past two years since he helped out in my classroom. It was especially fitting, then, that the most poignant words, and the ones that ended Tyler’s service were written by Tyler, himself in his last note on Faceboook:

“so i've been thinking about this for quite a while now and i've been looking for the perfect verse to go along with it but i couldn't seem to find it until one day in leadership we went over it. we all make mistakes, each and everyone of us, but sometimes its hard for us to forgive people who have made a mistake to us or to a close friend or something. in ephesians 4:32 it says, "Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you." we all make mistakes, and we should all be forgiven just like God has forgiven us for all of our sins and falling short of the glory of God. sometimes i dont want to forgive people but then i realize that if it was me i would want to be forgiven. just a little thought thats been on my mind for a while now.”
--by Tyler Toll

That will be Tyler’s legacy –learned the hard way through his own struggles, but learned, and demonstrated to a class of five year olds(one with whom he must have especially identified),then multiplied and magnified to touch nearly every person with whom he came into contact over the past four years.

Dear God,
Thank you for sending Tyler to us. Thank you for both the lessons he learned and those that he taught us. Thank you for his enthusiasm and zest for life, and most of all his love for others. We will never understand why he had to leave us so soon, but help us to honor his life by choosing to follow You with the same enthusiasm, love, and forgiveness. Please wrap your arms around his parents, his brother and sister, and all the others who loved him dearly and miss him terribly.. May his death draw each of us into closer fellowship with You, Lord Jesus, in whose name we pray, Amen.”

A Woman To Be Praised

Few things can cause us to stop and examine our lives like death. Last week I had many opportunities for reflection because of three precious people whose lives on this earth ended too soon…too soon, at least, from my selfish, human perspective. They are actually the fortunate ones, because as I sorrow over my loss, they are walking arm in arm with Jesus. Today I’m remembering Sherry.

Sherry was married to my husband’s cousin, which made us cousins in law, as far as I can tell. I would have been proud to have her as a sister. She was a “tough as nails” farm wife, as the preacher at her funeral repeatedly reminded us. She and her husband worked side by side on their farm, with Sherry often driving the tractor or combine. No task was too daunting for her, it seemed. She also loved Jesus, and prayed as hard as she worked. Her husband Wayne reported that the prayer list in her Bible contained the names of 65 people, and she refused to go to bed at night until she had adequately prayed for each one. This devotion to prayer for others continued throughout the months that she struggled against the cancer that eventually claimed her life.

Sherry was determined to live life fully to the very end. Four days before she died a doctor asked what her plans were. “I’m going to Branson this summer with my whole family,” she replied. She was speechless when the doctor asked what her “alternate” plans were. She had no alternate plan. God, however, had an alternate plan for Sherry, and in His grace He spared her a lengthy period of suffering.

The scripture reading at Sherry’s funeral was Proverbs 31, with a few apt modifications referencing hogs, soy beans, and grain trucks. We couldn’t help but nod our heads in agreement as verse after verse described her perfectly. “…Many daughters have done nobly, but you excel them all.” (Proverbs 31:29 NASB) Sherry lived a full life with few regrets, as evidenced by her ever-present beautiful smile and the joy that emanated from her. She served her husband, her family, her church, and her community well.

After the funeral we gathered at Wayne and Sherry’s sprawling farmhouse as we have on so many other occasions…weddings, funerals, and visits from far-off relatives. I wondered if any of us would feel like laughing as we usually do when we gather, but Wayne immediately put us all at ease with a story about the chair he was occupying.

It seems that one morning Sherry was feeling a little “frisky,” so when she came downstairs she sat on Wayne’s lap in their new recliner. As things started “heating up” the chair reclined further and further, until suddenly, without warning, it flipped over backwards, depositing them both on the floor. “I’m surprised you hadn’t heard that story,” he quipped. “I’m pretty sure all of Davis county has heard it, and I know it travelled all the way to southern Missouri!”

Of course the story had us all in stitches, and from there the stories and memories continued, punctuated as usual by much laughter…certainly the best medicine on such a bittersweet occasion.

Sherry’s life was honored that day, but more importantly, God was honored by Sherry’s life. She was a blessing to everyone she met. What an inspiration to those of us left here to live out our lives! “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised. Give her the product of her hands; and let her works praise her in the gates.” Proverbs 31: 30-31 NASB
Since that day when we celebrated Sherry’s life and faced living the rest of our lives without her, I have pondered these questions:

How God-honoring is my life?
Would my family and friends find comfort, even joy and laughter in
recalling their memories of my life?
What passage of Scripture would best characterize my life?
Would my family and friends feel blessed to have had me in their lives?

Dear Father,
Sometimes I am overwhelmed with the blessings you have allowed me to enjoy in this life you have given me. Thank you for allowing me to know Sherry, and for blessing my life through hers. Thank you, too, for the questions you have laid on my heart. Help me to honor you all the days of my life, and may others feel blessed to have known me. May my life inspire them to love and honor You when they see what You are doing through me. In the name of Your precious Son, Jesus, Amen.